Dat Rules- Ratings are assumed to be on Hard Mode.- Votes need some explanation regarding their gameplay performance to be counted. If somebody else said what you want to already, quote them explicitly.+/- ≤1 point extra regarding personality/appearance is encouraged, but no more. If you exercise your bias privileges, please do so explicitly.- Numerical votes out of 10, or something proportional to it. Make it easy to calculate for my sake.- Every ranking phase ends whenever I get out of bed, between 0700 and 0800 EST. Do the math for your timezone, Brits.- I will insist you do not use the "Not X" reason on any character, where X is another unit. If you do, your vote will be thrown out.- Characters should be rated for their performance on all possible routes (A/B / Sacae/Ilia) but should not be penalized for routes they physically cannot exist on (z.B Juno in Sacae).- "Recruits X" or "takes you to X chapter" arguments are explicitly banned. C'mon, people, this shouldn't need to be a rule. That's not gameplay performance.- I withhold the privilege to tell you your rating is bogus and demand you revise it if it breaks any of the above. I will not throw out votes anonymously, you will be informed and given a chance to revise.

The only GBA Female Hero; she mains Axes and is actually a good character to boot! Having good Axe rank means she use the higher-ranked Axes, and this will be handy in taking on those annoying Lance-infested chapters later on (ETRURIA, I AM LOOKING AT YOU!)

Oh, sure... Her STR may not the world's finest; but that is already resolved by Axes having high MT all the way; and with good SKL and SPD means she can hit and double stuff!

Since, she's the one of a kind in the GBA generation... I shall kick up the score of 7.0 up to...

Hey look! Someone who knows how to use an axe! Her strength and con aren't amazing, but she has a manly axe rank and some killer skill and speed. Definitely nice to have someone who can axe some stuff! She doesn't come too late, but a lot of her supports aren't great. Oh well! Can't have everything!

Echidna is awesome and comes on one of the most ball bustingly difficult chapters in the game (not a neg or a pro, just a statement) but she's an Axe goddess and even without them she has swords to fall back on, her stats are pretty damn good for a pre-promoted unit, and the chapter you get her you can BUY Killer Axes, instant Offense right there.

9/10, can sit in the team through to the end game due to Partial WTC, being able to use Wyrmslayers and Killer Axes off the bat

Well okay, 18 Spd | 13 Str is pretty good offensively. Aaaand she comes with C Swords / B Axes, which grants her Killer Axes and at least some other trippy Swords. Though one of her minor issues is her AS loss with the Killer Axe is always 2. Unfortunately, her Str and Spd growths remain under par (30% in both areas), so her improvement in those areas is minuscule. To make matters worse, her durability is "eh". 35 HP | 8 Def with 75% and 15% growths, respectively, kind of make her durability never really "improve". Part of the reason why it's decent for the time being is because she has WTA on Axe users with, you know, enough evade AND durability to withstand more than two hits sometimes. I don't view her much better than Bartre nowadays, so...

...We'll call it 5.5/10, and wave a +0.5 bias point for her rather good looks for having a hairstyle like that, so 6/10. I mean look at her OA, it's actually pretty good!Also, I would like to point out a couple things:

- She's trash in Sacae, which brings her vote down some.- She can use the Body Ring for +Con, but in Sacae her main competition is Miledy. Ilia she can probably take it with little issue.- I don't know how well she would really do in Bern - she would need stat boosters for help, though maybe she's a bit more salvageable at base than Dieck is? *shrugs*.

Echidna is decent, but she has some problems. Her growths are mediocre, but that doesn't matter much, seeing as she's a base unit for the most part. She has plenty of SPD and SKL, and 13 STR isn't too big of a problem due to the fact that she's mainly an axe wielder, but that's just it. Her CON simply isn't well-suited to axes. She loses 6 AS to the Steel Axe she comes with. She even loses 1 to Iron Axes. I mean, she's still kind of fast with these penalties (and 1 AS really isn't that much of a loss; plus, she only loses 3 to Hand Axes), but it's still a bother. You can give her swords if you want, but she fades out far more quickly with them due to the fact that she has less of a punch because of her only decent STR base.

Also of note is the fact that, while she dodges okay (especially in the axe-filled environment she joins in), her defenses are pretty bad, particularly for a pre-promote. 6 LCK-8 DEF-7 RES hardly impresses.

One nice thing is her high 19 SKL base means the Hit issues almost every other axe user in this game has is practically gone with her. She's not always doubling due to her Con, but you can give her the Brave Axe if you want more power than what iron offers, since a B in axes means she can wield it right off, and she doesn't have a huge amount of competition for it. Overall she's still one of the best/better axe users in the game, but that's not saying a huge amount.

The only GBA Female Hero; she mains Axes and is actually a good character to boot! Having good Axe rank means she use the higher-ranked Axes, and this will be handy in taking on those annoying Lance-infested chapters later on (ETRURIA, I AM LOOKING AT YOU!)

Oh, sure... Her STR may not the world's finest; but that is already resolved by Axes having high MT all the way; and with good SKL and SPD means she can hit and double stuff!

Since, she's the one of a kind in the GBA generation... I shall kick up the score of 7.0 up to...

I'd say Echidna is one of the best units for the C13 Body Ring. 11 con allows her to use Iron Axe and Killer with no AS loss, and only 1 from Hand. Steel sucks anyway. It's heavy, inaccurate, and at least hand is 1-2 range where Steel is pretty much outclassed by Killer in every way except pricing.

So. I'm going to get negatives out of the way because this is Echidna and I hate talking bad things about her, but there are a few things. Like addressed above, her con is an issue (wtf IS are you telling me that Echidna is only as big as that puny OJ, not cool man, give her 12), but unless you're sticking that body ring on Miledy, it's hers. Her durability is not exactly the greatest, either. Her HP is okay. Her defense is another thing I'm going to yell at IS for. At least she's in a constant state of WTA. Also 6 move etc but that's not a huge issue, whatever. Also her growths overall kinda sucks, but that's to be expected of a FE6 prepromote, and I've found her to level insanely fast for some reasons. Maybe it's because I get a ton of lucky crits with Killer Axe and she inadvertently gets a fuckton of killExp or something but either way I never really had issues with that but that's beside the point.

Now on to the good bits. Echidna has 13str/19skl/18spd at base. 13 str may not look like much, but she does use axes and it lets her orko a bunch of shit using Killer, which she can access at base. 18 base speed mitigates the con issue with lighter axes such as Iron and Killer, and even before the C13 body ring she's still got 16 AS with Killer, enough to double most things at the time. 19 skill allows her to, you know, actually hit things with axes fairly accurately, which is not many axe users can claim to. To top that off, she as C swords, so if she really needs extra accuracy, pull out a sword. After chapter 14 where you get the Silver Card, you can mass-buy Killer Axes without worry. And hell, in her join chapter, you can buy killer axes anyway. Like addressed earlier, her poor defenses are somewhat mitigated by her partial WTA, where she has axes against lance enemies and swords against everyone else. See, I don't have issues with her Sacae performance much, since most aren't doubling except Rutger and Shin and maybe Miledy and Percival and Lance, and she isn't getting doubled either and has a decent player phase with Killing Edge access (and her axes against Wyverns) , which is still better than half of your team that either do get doubled or can't hit for shit. A valuable member of my team, always.

7.5/10. Now lets get to the biases.

It's pretty well known that I like muscles. Especially if it's on women. Echidna has SEXY-FUCKING biceps. DO WANT. Also she's like, my other other other goddess. so that's a full +1 bias.

Ah, a lady who wields axes. Her bases are great, sadly her growths are not so great. She doesn't have the defence or HP to take hit after hit like Bartre, but she does have some decent speed to help with that evade, and she will never get doubled. Carrying lighter weapons means she will probably be the unit doubling, and not the enemy.

She can take that Brave Axe straight from Geese because seriously fuck Geese. Access to Killers is also a great help.

As long as a healer's not far away, Echidna is a good frontliner, and that Body Ring will help a lot, too.

But yeah, she is not doubling for too long, but for when she is, good crutch.

uh echidna doubles for a long time

she doubles wyvern riders for pretty much forever. things like mercs are a little out of reach but you can count on her to have the highest AS on the team outside of, like, rutger, percival, and miledy.

A pretty good prepromote Hero with a few problems (CON, durability) but ways to fix them. Oh, and she's female, big whoop. Always cool to be a Hero, which is a pretty solid class and good to be a prepromote in even if you're not the best statistically thanks to Axe/Sword supremacy. Her supports aren't grand but Lalam is a good fastish one.

I think Echidna is ultimately better than Bartre thanks to the AS lead alone. Modest weapon versatility and non-zero growths are nice too, but 16 AS killer axes are almost enough for me. She starts strong and is usable forever. How many other people can we claim that for?